Chapter Eighteen

THE PAST

September 1804

By the end of the week-long house party, Louisa had changed her mind. For the entirety of her first Season, she had resolved to marry no gentleman who would not support or encourage her painting.

After a week in Henry's company, she had resolved to marry none but him.

"Tell me more about your art," he said as they walked along the gravel path in the formal gardens. The afternoon was balmy, a burst of unexpected warmth sending most of the young people outside, and Louisa had conspired to escape their escort. "Why do you want to paint with oils?"

She looked up at him now, biting back her amusement. "Why, are you looking for excuses to find me shocking?"

His smile was warm and unguarded. "I don't find you shocking, Louisa."

"Now that, I am certain, is a lie. You were very shocked the first time we met."

"Surprised is not the same as shocked."

"I think you were positively scandalised that I was by myself."

"I think you're imagining things," he said, but there was a charming self-awareness to his smile, and a hint of redness around his ears.

"If you are a prude, you can admit it to me, you know. I am an antidote to prudish behaviour."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. One cannot be prudish and bear my company." She shot him a glance from the corner of her eyes. "Once, I went swimming in the lake in nothing but my chemise."

He made a slight choking sound, and when he met her gaze, even for an instant, there was no denying the flash of heat in his eyes. "Were you caught?"

"No one but you and my maid knows of it," she said, and was rewarded by a faint blush on his cheekbones. "Now, look at me and say you are not scandalised."

He glanced at the ground. "That is not precisely the term I would use. What provoked you to swim in the lake in the first place? Were you bored?"

"I am never bored while on the run from propriety."

That made him give a low, rough laugh. Sometimes she dreamt about that laugh, waking flushed and heated at the thought of it against her skin. "Are you bored now?" he asked.

"Not in the slightest," she said, and tugged him off the main path. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Come with me and you'll see." She led him to the brick hothouse, glass inserted into the walls and sloping roof and the door ajar. Inside, perfumed heat washed over them, and she laughed, giddy at the exotic beauty. A bold red flower dangled provocatively over the gravel walkway, and she trailed her fingers along its velvet petals. When she glanced at him, he was watching her with singular focus, as though debating if he should run.

"Why are we here?" he asked her, the caution in his tone helplessly endearing.

"Afraid I'll attempt to seduce you?" she asked, trailing a finger down his chest.

His blue eyes held hers and his hand wrapped around her wrist, stilling her. "Sometimes," he said hoarsely, the air between them heating and crackling, "I wonder if there is ever a world where I hold out against you."

"I hope there is not." She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth for a heartbeat. "And if there is, I pray it is not this one."

"Why did you bring me here, Louisa?"

There was a pressure in her chest, a sense that she dangled on the very edge of a precipice. This was the point of no return. "Because I love the flowers," she said. "And because I love the way you look at me when you think there is no one else to see."

He swallowed, and she was transfixed by the bobbing in his throat. They were close, so close, his hand still fastened around her wrist, her fingers still pressed against his waistcoat. She could almost deceive herself that she felt the pounding of his heart. "How do I look at you?"

"The way the sun gazes at the moon."

The corner of his mouth kicked up, and a dimple pressed in his cheek, two points of softness in a stern face she had come to adore. "Very pretty. I might almost have thought you'd read some of Comerford's poetry."

"You look at me as though you are starving," she whispered. Her breath caught in her lungs; her heart hammered. "And I feel it too. The hunger."

He closed his eyes and groaned. "Louisa—"

"Would you kiss me if I agreed to be your wife?"

His eyes flew open, blue gaze shocked. A line creased between his brows. "You've asked me this before."

"Yes, and then you told me no because you can offer me nothing. But I have a question for you. If you were my husband and I was your wife, if we were married, would you allow me to paint?"

His fingers flexed on her wrist, as though the thought of their marriage was somehow unbearable. "How could I force my wife to relinquish something that brought her so much joy?"

"Then I have nothing to fear by marrying you, and nothing to gain by marrying another. Regardless of wealth."

His thumb rubbed slowly on her pulse point, but although neither of them had moved—she had not thought either of them had moved—they were coming together. The trajectory of their orbit was inevitable: they would soon collide. She hoped stars would bloom in their wake. "What are you saying?"

"I think you know."

A disbelieving laugh broke free. "You're asking me to marry you?"

"I'm requesting that you ask me." She tipped her head back to look fully into his face, her arm now trapped between their two bodies, her skirts brushing his legs. "Ask me to marry you, Henry."

"You know all the reasons I can't."

"I know you have not yet graduated from Cambridge. And I know my mother disapproves of you and would not consent to an engagement. But when I am one-and-twenty, I will be free to marry whomever I please."

The line between his brows deepened, and she wished she could reach up and smooth it away. "That's in three years' time, Louisa."

"I won't waver. Will you?"

"That isn't a consideration."

"Then ask me."

"And if you change your mind before you reach your majority?" he asked, which she privately thought was laughable. Evidently he was unaware of the way he moved through the world as though he merely had to command it to obey. At only twenty, his will was stronger than that of gentlemen twice his age.

"What must I do to assure you that my feelings will not change merely because they will be subjected to time's unlawful demands? Do you want me to tell you that I love you?"

He clamped his other hand over her mouth. "Don't."

"Why not?" she tried to ask, but her words were muffled. She flicked her tongue along his palm, tasting salty skin, and his eyes darkened. No longer the summer sky—they were dusk and dawn and stormy grey. His desire was a brand, and she offered her skin to its heat, craving it, savouring the knowledge that right now, as he looked down at her, he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

Slowly, he removed the hand from her mouth, and she licked her lips. "Give me one good reason why I should not tell you how I feel," she said, her throat tight. "One reason that does not involve me being incapable of knowing my own mind."

"Because," he said, the edges of his words fraying, "if you were mine, I don't think I could bear to lose you."

"You don't have to." She placed her palm flat on his chest, feeling the thunderous pounding of his heart. "I'm yours, Henry. All you have to do is take me."

He took a sharp breath, and she thought he might step back, putting distance between them. Instead, with a noise that was almost savage, he caught the back of her neck with his free hand and brought his mouth against hers.

The world suspended. His lips were warm and soft despite the roughness of the kiss, and after a second, they settled against hers as though they had found a home there. She had never been kissed before, and she knew he had not either, but it was as though this was an old, familiar dance; they knew the steps. His hand slid to her cheek, fingertips rubbing against the tender skin of her temples and her jaw, tilting her head slightly so her mouth could slide against his.

So this was what it was like to be kissed.

He made a low rumble in his chest, a desperate noise that kicked the need in her belly up a notch. This was not the rigid, stern, controlled Henry Beaumont that she had come to know. The urgent movement of his mouth was a song, and she rose to meet its melody, arching her back so her chest pressed against his. She dug her hands into his hair, holding him against her. His hand slid down her shoulder, down her arm, and settled on her waist, hauling her closer, his fingers flexing. She could feel every press through the layers she wore.

If someone were to find them now, they would be ruined, but she couldn't bring herself to care. What did reputation matter when she had Henry Beaumont's hands on her? When, second by second, she was unravelling the self-control of the most disciplined person she knew?

A low, involuntary groan rose in his throat as she opened her mouth, inviting his tongue in. Perhaps she groaned, too. Need pounded through her veins in time with her heartbeat. His fingers scraped against her back as though he wished to bring her still closer, but didn't know how.

With a frustrated growl, he moved them both, easing her backwards until her shoulders collided with the wall. And then he was kissing her again, his body lining up with hers. His hips rocked, an involuntary thrust that had her gasping into his mouth. She was melted wax in his hands, soft and malleable. He could unmake her then reform her into something new, and so long as his mouth was on hers, she would let him. She would be whatever he needed her to be, so long as he would not stop kissing her.

He rocked into her again, something hard and firm pressing into her stomach, and this time he was the one to groan. Louisa wrapped her arms around his neck, wishing something could be done about the sensitive weight of her breasts and the liquid throb between her legs, knowing that Henry was the answer but not knowing how . She shifted against him, and his palm slid down her side to her thigh, adjusting her so—

A plant pot fell to the ground, shattering with a crack that cut through the haze of lust that surrounded them. Henry jerked back from her, breath coming too fast, lips red and swollen, eyes wine-dark and just as drunk.

For a moment, they stared at one another. His hair was dishevelled, looking precisely as though she had been combing her hands through it, and there was a bulge in his breeches that drew her eyes, even though she was certain a proper young lady would not dare look.

"Louisa," he said, and her gaze returned to his face. His expression was tortured. She touched her mouth, pressing the last of his kiss there like a stain.

"Do not apologise," she said, feeling the vulnerability in her words as she said them. A silent plea she couldn't articulate, but that she knew he could hear anyway. She could still feel the pressure of his hands on her and the urgency of his mouth. As though he had been dying and she was the cure, his last grasp on life, his only hope of redemption.

For another moment more, he stared at her with a desperation she understood. Then he shook his head, clearing it of its dazed expression, and the stern lines of his mouth softened into something tender. He brushed his fingers along her jaw. "I wouldn't know how to go about regretting it," he told her. "Though perhaps I should regret breaking the plant pot."

She laughed, and standing on her tiptoes to kiss him again felt like the most natural thing in the world. He caught her about the waist, holding her against him, and the press of his lips was so sweet it made her heart ache.

"Will you marry me?" she asked when he pulled away. "For the sake of the broken plant pot?"

He shook his head, but she could see it was an effort not to smile. "I have very little to offer you."

"You have you. And this ." She looked down at him meaningfully. "I would hardly call that ‘very little'."

The flush that suffused his cheeks made her want to kiss him all over again. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Marry me, I hope."

"It may be some time before I'm in a position to support a wife."

"I would marry you even if we had to steal away to Scotland," she said. "Whether it takes three years or five."

"No." He looked at her with unwarranted seriousness. "If I am to risk your future by allowing you to marry me, then I cannot risk your reputation. If and when we marry, we will not invite scandal to our door. Promise me that."

Her dear, upright, straitlaced Henry. How could she not love him? "Then we will wait," she said. "Until I am one-and-twenty. But mark my words, Henry. I will have you one way or the other."